


A Woman's Job

by doingwords



Category: Lucha Underground
Genre: Female Friendship, Gen, Kayfabe Compliant, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 08:22:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5998653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doingwords/pseuds/doingwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Temple is closed, and Sexy Star is missing. Melissa is determined to find her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Woman's Job

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kokiyas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kokiyas/gifts).



> Set about a week after S1's Ultima Lucha.

She’d bought the sword from a man named Trejo, who dealt in rare weapons from the back room of his taco shop. It was deceptively heavy, like a medicine ball, with a golden handle and a blade shaped like an eagle’s talon. On either side of the blade were markings she couldn’t read, glowing blue with ancient knowledge. 

“ _Eres una fiera_ , you know that?” he’d said as he showed her how to hold the sword properly. “To go after whatever’s left in that building by yourself? That’s brave. I wouldn’t do that.”

Melissa stood twenty feet from the closed doors of the Temple—the last place she saw Star—and tightened her grip on the sword’s hilt as Trejo’s words haunted her. The sword was supposed to ‘protect every woman who wields it in battle,’ but she didn’t feel any braver. In many ways, she was still the woman who screamed as Pentagon Jr. set her up for the armbar, instinctively clawing for her life but ultimately knowing she was too weak, too scared to overpower anyone.

But Star, her dearest friend, the woman who fights for every girl who needs a hero. She is brave. 

The day after Pentagon’s attack, Star had dried her tears, reassuring her in a tone that made her sound like a mother, a sister, and a best friend all at once: “As long as there is breath in my body, I will protect you. One day, I will no longer breathe, but that doesn’t mean you will be hopeless. You have the heart of a warrior. I will show you.” 

And so she trained with Star. She learned how to punch, how to throw her weight behind a kick, how to turn any foreign object into a weapon. But nothing—not Star’s faith, not her own soaring confidence—could have prepared her for this, for the war she would have to fight alone. 

As Melissa approached the Temple, its doors began to creak open, requesting her entry. Her breathing grew labored, her heart playing her ribs like a marimba, but still she walked forward. Before she met Star, Melissa would often wear a necklace bearing the image of Rita of Cascia—the patron saint of abuse victims, of the wounded, of lost causes. Tonight, dangling from her neck, was the image of Joan of Arc.

Melissa took her first step inside the Temple, then followed it with another, then another. As she withdrew her sword from its sheath, she repeated to herself the words Star had left her with before her matches, before entering her own battles. 

_Never send a man to do a woman’s job._

**Author's Note:**

> "Eres una fiera" translates to "You're a beast" and is meant as a compliment in this context.


End file.
